Member Questions

How do you manage the post-work dinner rush? Do you cook before and just heat up dinner or actually manage to cook fresh right before?”

6 replies so far...

Usually a combination of items I've previously cooked and frozen, put in the crock-pot or made fresh. The key for me is menu-planning...if we have a plan, we do pretty well with it. Otherwise, we end up with sandwiches, pizza and, if the day was really crazy, cereal!

During the week, though, meals are pretty simple. I do my big meals on the weekend - more time to cook plus it gives us leftovers for lunches during the week.

I have started planning ahead more and more, but it's hard. I did buy the book "Fix Freeze Feast" which is a great resource for freeze ahead meals, but I try to only use those for about half our meals, the others we cook fresh. I also have some quick standbys like frozen ravioli and homemade marinara or stirfry that are my go-tos.

I try to cook fresh. Nothing fancy like tacos, fajitas or stir fry. Grilled meat on green salad plus rolls seem to satisfy my teen-agers. Anything that can be made in 30 minutes or less. We reserve the big dinners for Saturday night out or for our traditional Sunday family dinner after church. During the week we keep it simple. It also helps to plan the week's menu ahead of time. If anything needs to be marinated then I do it the night before like momof2lovelies. But if it's one of those days when we're rushing all over the place then it's fast food and/or pizza! What can u do?